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1855
Year 1855 (MDCCCLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). Events of 1855 January - June * January 1 - Ottawa is incorporated as a city. * January 23 - The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge. * January 23 - The region of Wairarapa, New Zealand was hit by the strongest earthquake ever recorded in New Zealand, which reached Magnitude 8.1 on the Richter Scale. There were five deaths. * January 26 - Point No Point Treaty signed in Washington Territory. * January 27 - The Panama Railway becomes the first railroad to connect the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean. * January 29 - Lord Aberdeen resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom over the management of the Crimean War. * February 5 - Lord Palmerston becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. * February 11 - Kassa Hailu is crowned Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia. * February 22 - Pennsylvania State University is founded as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania. * March 3 - US Congress appropriates $30,000 to create US Camel Corps * March 17 - Taiping Rebellion: A Taiping army of 350,000 invades Anhui. * March 30 - Elections held for first Kansas Territory legislature. Missourians cross border in large numbers to elect proslavery body. * May 15 - The Great Gold Robbery of 1855 in England. * June 29 - The Daily Telegraph begins publication. July - December * July 2 - Kansas Territorial legislature convenes in Pawnee and begins passing proslavery laws. * September 3 - Last Bartholomew Fair in London, England. * September 11 - Sevastapol falls to the British troops. * November 17 - David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls in what is now present-day Zambia-Zimbabwe. * November 21 - Large-scale Bleeding Kansas violence begins with events leading to "Wakarusa War" between antislavery and proslavery forces. * December 22 - Metropolitan Board of Works established. Undated * Stamp duty was removed from newspapers in Britain creating mass market media in the UK. Ongoing events * Crimean War (1854-1856) * Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864) Births *January 5 - King Camp Gillette, American inventor (d. 1932) *January 20 - Ernest Chausson, French composer (d. 1899) *January 21 - John Moses Browning, American firearms inventor (d. 1926) *January 28 - William Seward Burroughs, American bank clerk and inventor (d. 1898) *March 13 - Percival Lowell, American astronomer (d. 1916) *March 24 - Andrew Mellon, American banker and philanthropist (d. 1937) *April 21 - Hardy Richardson, 19th century baseball player (d. 1931) *April 27 - Caroline Rémy, French feminist (d. 1929) *May 1 - Marie Corelli, English novelist (d. 1924) *May 9 - Julius Röntgen, German-Dutch classical composer (d. 1932) *May 10 - Sri Yukteswar Giri, Author of The Holy Science *July 26 - Ferdinand Tönnies, German sociologist (d. 1936) *October 12 - Arthur Nikisch, Hungarian conductor (d. 1922) *October 21 - Howard Hyde Russell, American activist (d. 1946) *November 5 - Léon Teisserenc de Bort, French meteorologist (d. 1913) *November 6 - Ezra Seymour Gosney, American philanthropist and eugenicist (d. 1942) * December 28 - John William Wood Sr., North Carolinan politician, founder of Benson (d. 1928) : See also 1855 births. Deaths *January 6 - Giacomo Beltrami, Italian explorer (b. 1779) *January 10 - Mary Russell Mitford, English novelist and dramatist (b. 1787) *January 26 - Gérard de Nerval, French writer (b. 1808) *February 6 - Josef Munzinger, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1791) *February 23 - Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician, astronomer, and physicist (b. 1777) *March 2 - Nicholas I of Russia, the 11th Russian Tsar (b. 1796) *March 29 - Henri Druey, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1799) *March 31 - Charlotte Brontë, English author (b. 1816) *May 5 - Robert Inglis, English politician (b. 1786) *May 23 - Charles Robert Malden English explorer (b. 1797) *June 28 - Fitzroy Somerset, commander of British forces in the Crimean War (b. 1788) *June 28 - Pavel Nakhimov, Russian admiral (b. 1802) *August 7 - Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (b. 1802) *November 11 - Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (b. 1813) * November 26 - Adam Mickiewicz, Lithuanian - Polish poet and writer (b. 1798) : See also 1855 deaths.